Dam-Funk in XLR8R 126

• XLR8R
• May 13, 2009

"I definitely am a true believer that there are things we're not privy to but are happening all around us," Dâmon Riddick, the one-man-band and DJ better known as Dâm-Funk (pronounced DAME funk), tells me over the phone from L.A. "And sometimes you can just catch it in your peripheral vision:' In the context of our conversation, Dâm is talking about a UFO sighting that inspired "Brookside Park," a sprawling opus that's central to his upcoming debut LP, Toeachizown.

But he could easily be referring to the way he's pulled obscure aspects of the early 1980s - namely those fleeting, forgotten moments when funk and R&B were boldly reaching for the cosmos-into his orbit. "I'd compare it to old UHF TV, stuff like Midnight Special that you'd catch late at night when you weren't supposed to be up," Dâm says of his aesthetic. "Or on Saturday morning before the cartoons would start, you might catch a local independent music show. That kinda vibe."

If you're old enough to remember seeking out music and culture in the pre-cable era, his comment needs no explanation. If not, Toeachizown tracks like "Brookside Park" are capable of transporting you there. With its vocoder-scrambled alien vocals and chugging analog synths, the track is the audio equivalent of a faint, eerie memory-be it of an inexplicably frightening low-budget video or an unexplainable childhood dream.

"I'm fortunate to be a California kid," Dâm explains. "I grew up riding around in the mountains, always looking up. That's how I'd catch certain things that would happen out of the ordinary. Brookside is a park by where I grew up in Pasadena, where everything would go down on a Sunday. When I was a teenager, I saw something go across the sky- an orange type of orb. But it was quiet. Everybody there mentioned it but nobody really talked about it again. I just never forgot. ['Brookside Park'] has the vibe of the music that was going on at the time. I wanted to make something where you could imagine being there."

NIGHTS IN BLACK SATIN
Musically, Dâm-Funk is often associated with so-called boogie - essentially mid-tempo, post-disco synth-funk best exemplified by early '80s Prelude Records releases like D-Train's "You're the One For Me." Thanks to Funkmosphere, Dâm-Funk's weekly L.A. party, as well as various internet-distributed DJ mixes, Dâm has been hailed as the "ambassador" of the style.

"The sound of boogie is basically post-disco," Dâm says. "It's not disco like the Bee Gees, not quite P-Funk, but right in between, with synthesizers and thumping basslines and melodic chords. The beat was mostly on the one and two, which made it easier for skating. Boogie slows down a little, to that tempo where you can, like, ride to it."

The term, which has spread as demand for the records has grown on eBay, was actually coined by U.K. deejays Norman Jay and Dez Parkes. "They were turning people on to the sound in the late '80s and early '90s," Dâm informs. "When Soul II Soul, Lisa Stansfield, and all the U.K. street soul came out, they were listening to Prelude Records and groups like Change?'

While Dâm says he embraces the "ambassador of boogie" title, he points out that others bestowed it upon him and prefers to identify his sound as "modern funk." Indeed, Toeachizown's more complex tracks-like the woozy "Brookside Park" or "Mobbin' Through Busters," with its Dilla-esque offbeat drum pattern-might not work on the floor at Funkmosphere. "When I play selector, I'm sharing my influences," Dâm says. "But I'm not trying to duplicate D-Train on my records. I'm just staying true to the funk."

Read the rest in XLR8R #126, which can be downloaded here:
www.xlr8r.com/magazine/126